It All Comes Out in Babbling Moron
by Austennerdita2533
Summary: A Gilmore Girls Drabble Collection full of Stars Hollow silliness, sarcasm, fast-talking, and more coffee than oxygen. (Latest: It's late, close to the holidays, and Rory and Jess find themselves alone strolling through a snowy and decor-decked Stars Hollow to share a moment where past and present feelings collide.)
1. In Love and Snow

**AUTHOR'S NOTE : ****Christmas morning is meant to be spent all warm and snug in their bed, but that was before Lorelai smelled snow. A holiday one-shot full of Java Junkies, holidays puns, too much coffee, not enough sleep, and a Stars Hollow winter wonderland**.

 **This is for Gilmore Girls Secret Santa and is my first attempt at GG/Java Junkies fanfic.**

 **Merry Christmas! :)**

 **xx Ashlee Bree**

* * *

"Y'know, most sane people who are awoken by a blinking red light this early in the damn morning think one of two things: Either, _I'm being arrested;_ or, _I drank too much and am now hallucinating Christmas ghosts,_ " Luke grumbled as he rolled onto his elbows.

Wiping a hand across his face, he rubbed at the sleep that still darkened his eyes.

"If you're a spirit—" he rolled onto his side, using his pillow as a shield to deflect that obnoxious red flashing "—tell me my penance so I can go back to fishin' sugar plums in my dreams."

"Sorry, no can do!" a female voice chirped in reply.

"Let me Scrooge it 'till at least 8 A.M., will ya? It's a holiday."

"Nope!"

"The sun's not even up yet," Luke groaned.

"You know you want to cockle-doodle-do…"

"Not today, I don't."

"Waky, waky!" the voice insisted. "I promise there's no eggs and baky..."

"Lorelai—"

" _Lukeee."_

He burrowed his head further beneath the pillow.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," Lorelai said as she plopped down next to him on the mattress, "and I _command_ thee to awaken!" His wife shook him, but he didn't move. "You have exactly three seconds before I roll you from this bed like a human snowball, mister. _One_ — _two_ —"

Perhaps if he didn't move, if he allowed his breaths to become long and slow and deep, if he added a good, hard snore or two she'd…

"Come _on_ , Luke!" she pleaded, pouting.

Or not.

Running her fingers across his back in dancing, poking steps, she added, "Pretty, pretty _pleaseee_?"

Luke sighed. Removing the pillow from his face, he peered at her with one eye open.

 _Blink._

 _Blink._

 _Blink_.

That annoying red light still swirled about the room. Around her head. From her face. More than that, Lorelai was perky— _too_ perky.

"How much coffee have you had?" he asked, his one eye still trained on her face.

"None."

"Plus?"

"A pot-and-a-half," Lorelai shrugged indifferently.

He knew her so well.

"But lucky for you," she said with her eyebrow quirked, "it gave me the zip I need to enjoy my presents…and _you_."

"You do realize you could enjoy me better from bed, right?" he countered, drawing her nearer by the hand.

She lowered her face to him and smiled, caressing his hand affectionately.

"That sounds warm, wonderful, _tempting_ —" She leaned in until her lips grazed near the stubble of his cheek, tickling his face with her warm breath and paused right before their lips met, "But I still need you out of bed…five minutes ago," she said.

With that, she clapped, bounding to her feet. "Up, up, up, up, up!"

Bouncing up-and-down, up-and-down, like an Energizer bunny with caffeine-fueled batteries, she peeled the warm blankets from Luke's body and pulled him to his feet. After beaming _Merry Christmas, babe_ into his face, she smacked a hard kiss against his lips and shoved his ass towards the closet.

"Better dress warm, Grinch," she insisted, throwing a coat, boots, and gloves into his open, yet unsuspecting arms, "because it's cold outside. And Lorelai the Red-Nosed Gilmore," she gestured at her blinking nose, "has a snowy Christmas journey planned _especially_ for you," she added with a wink.

Realizing he could no longer win this _I want to sleep_ debate, he thrust his arms into a jacket and rummaged through a drawer for a pair of socks. He sighed.

"Did you just say _snowy_?"

"Yep!" she replied merrily.

 _Of course_.

Snow _always_ prompted Lorelai's excitable insanity. Luke forever marveled at her love affair with frozen precipitation, her _perfect present_ , as she liked to call it. He didn't understand it. Callous and icy, snow didn't love you back with anything except frostbite, crappy driving conditions, and sidewalks that needed to be shoveled; but the smile it always managed to carve on her lips? That— _that_ he savored.

And although he always griped and grumbled about it, that tireless Gilmore enthusiasm was one of the things he adored most about her (even if it meant she dragged his exhausted ass out of bed _way_ too early on Christmas morning).

"Where's Rory?" he asked as he stumbled into boots.

"Asleep, of course."

"Okay," he began warily, his brow furrowed "so we are traipsing around at sunrise because…?"

Lorelai fixed him with a look as they exited the bedroom, assuming her best sing-songy voice, "Because above the Stars Hollow ground lies a beauuutiful mantle of white, and you and I shall explore it at _first_ Christmas light. And then, we'll dash through it…far away… _out of sight_!" she explained, sprinkling her fingers through the air for emphasis.

Tightening a scarf around her neck, she sprang down the stairs as Luke trudged after her unwillingly.

"I think you've confused me with someone else. I don't _dash_ through snow, Lorelai, I _walk_."

"No ice dashing for you, got it."

"I know you think snow is harmless and majestic in all its snowflake glory, but let me tell you something—" Luke continued, "it's not. Snow equals ice, and ice equals chapped skin, broken bones, concussions, and greeting the ground with a baseball slide; and anyone insane enough to dash along the streets or sidewalks in _this_ town after a snowstorm—well—they damn-well _deserve_ the bruised butts Winter leaves behind."

Luke crossed his arms as if in finality. Lorelai grinned wider at this for some reason, and then yanked him outside into the chilly December air.

"It's so nice that you're protective of our unbruised holiday butts," Lorelai replied, patting him on the chest, "but take heart, Frosty, because we're not dashing by foot." She simpered as she swooped her arms out in _ta-da._ "We're dashing by one-horse-open-sleigh!"

It wasn't until she pulled him down the stairs and stepped aside that Luke realized she wasn't joking. A red sleigh—complete with two horses dressed as reindeer (probably Cletus and Desdemona from the inn), silver bells which jingled, mistletoe that hung along the back of the seats, a thermos of his favorite peppermint tea, and a giant green quilt—waited for them in the backyard. Luke had no idea why, but when he perceived Lorelai's grand romantic gesture, stolen from one too many cliché fairy tales and countless hours of movie-watching with Rory, he surrendered. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, they took their seats and cozied beneath the blanket.

"Who's leading?" he kissed into her hair while she flicked on the reins. They trotted away. "You…or Rudolph?"

Lorelai _pfft_ 'd,"That second-rate reindeer's got nothin' on a Gilmore."

Snow fell from the sky in thick white flakes and the sunrise blotted pinks against the eastern horizon as the sleigh carried them through town, winter hugging the Stars Hollow morning with the minty freshness of a candy cane. Christmas lights twinkled in windows, _Winter Wonderland_ hummed from the town square speakers on repeat (a minor consequence of TJ's elfish tinkering), and Santa decorations _yo-yo-yo_ 'd instead of _ho-ho-ho_ 'd on Kirk's front lawn. Miss Patty's kiss-and-bestow wreaths lingered around every corner and spread holiday love in shades of evergreen, while dropped sugar cookies trailed the path to _Doose's_ in trampled crumbs. Luke's heart, though he'd never admit it, grew two sizes as he rode through his quiet, quirky town with his favorite lady cuddled beside him, the warmth of Christmas cheer melting away his sleepy frown.

Yes—Luke felt happy. Almost…merry.

Some time later, Lorelai slowed them to a stop in their front yard before the chuppah.

"When I was a little girl," she said, "just call me Queen Elsa of all things frozen, I used to close my eyes and wish that, one day, I'd take a merry, married sleigh ride through the snow with the one man I truly loved. I'd wish we'd catch snowflakes on our tongues and build snowmen to life with our hands. Because, after all, being in love _while_ in snow never keeps you cold. Burning love, am I right?"

Luke smiled as she nudged him playfully with her elbow. Flicking her blue eyes to his face, her voice suddenly dropped the goofy pretense.

"And although it took many years and many mistakes, and perhaps a couple toads and frogs along the way, I'm happy to say—" Lorelai reached out to intertwine their fingers, "—that sometimes childish dreams _do_ come true."

"I know I talk a lot," she said, emotion brimming in her eyes, "but I don't say enough that I'm glad for the grumpy, glorious, though sometimes Grinchy, gift that is _you_. Merry Christmas, hun."

Luke kissed her then, his lips marking her with the soft affection he couldn't express with words. "Merry Christmas, Lorelai," he breathed in reply.

As she shifted slightly to the left, nestling into his shoulder with a sigh, Luke caught sight of two objects perched beneath the chuppah he built for her all those years ago. Snowmen. There were two. Among the sticks, carrots, rocks, flannel, and scarves Lorelai had used for their faces and accessories, they also adorned baseball caps—one pink, one blue. Before them, rested a sign:

 _Mr. and Mrs. Backwards Baseball Cap_

 _In love and in snow_

 _Just in case you didn't know._

And with that, Luke knew the truth: for while the snow would melt soon, the love inside it never could. It never would.

* * *

 **ADDITIONAL NOTE : It's rather mushy, but the holiday season always turns me into a sentimental sap. Thanks for reading!**

 **Reviews would be wonderful.**


	2. All In

**AUTHOR'S NOTE : My brain was screeching with Luke and Lorelai's feels after I saw a 7x21 gif set on Tumblr and it wouldn't shut up until I wrote-it-out. (Writer problems, right? ha.) As a result, here's a random Java Junkies, Lorelai's-emotionally-heartwrenching-karaoke-ballad-inspired drabble.**

 **Happy reading!**

 **xx Ashlee Bree**

* * *

Luke's so alight with his heart-grown cupid wings—soaring, soaring, _soaring!_

Feeling hopeful for the first time in months and months as he remembers those soulful blue eyes locked and loaded, blazing with meaning as karaoke lyrics tumble from her lips in the various cadences of a Whitney Houston song. The words _I SLEPT WITH CHRISTOPHER_ finally halting their haunting, torturous reverberations in the dark and miserable recesses of his mind. Hollowing out into a sweet, silent slumber of regret. His anger now softening against the warmth of an ancient quilt.

A distant snore still sounds, reminding him that Lorelai and Christopher _did_ happen, but it only registers now in the faintest of echoes. It's no longer a flesh-and-bone nightmare for his eyes and ears and mouth full of disgruntled sighs to combat each day in sleepwalking hell.

In look and in words and in feeling, that once-hurtful phrase becomes a paper cobweb shredded by Lorelai's beautiful, honest voice with each repetition of "I Will Always Love You" that she directs to him...and only him. It sends his toes crashing over that Forever-Pining Line again, tingling with a renewed desire to pursue. That aching hole inside of him opening larger and wider despite his struggles to subdue it.

He's terrified but jubilant. Impatient but hesitant. Detonating with emotion inside but forever repressed, _repressed_ on the outside.

Before he knows it, Luke's donning that trademark blue baseball cap she gave him all those years ago and waiting for the right moment to sweep her into another waltz, any excuse to hold her close against him. Swaying and dipping her with a masculine grace, sending her delighted laugh tinkling against champagne glasses and beer bottles like a wind chime. Wiping away flecks of bittersweet memories from her cheeks as if they were diamond droplets falling—dripping from her eyelashes. Hating this Hay Bale Maze for separating them, but dropping to his knees to kiss the bend in the path that steers them, once again, to the same spot.

Here.

Now.

Unattached, but not truly.

Promising silently that, if Fate's kind to him again, this time, he'll _never let her go_.

It's this hope that charges his smile the next day when he sees her swiveling on a stool at the counter of his diner, chatting idly with Babette and Miss Patty. Lorelai's sipping, more like guzzling, coffee in that friendly laid-back way that only she can. Her eyes sparkle, reflecting mirth and silliness in those two hypnotizing lakes of blue.

"Honey, we were there," Babette says.

"We heard the song," Miss Patty adds with a nod of you-can't-deny-the-truth agreement.

"It gave me goosebumps!"

As Babette shivers in remembrance of the perceived romance, rubbing her hands across her shoulders and down her arms, Miss Patty leans forward with her hand over her heart, "The way you locked eyes with him!"

"All of that pent-up emotion, oooh!"

Luke's pulse flutters. Sparrows flap and chirp inside his chest at the sight of Lorelai's embarrassed blush at the mention of last night's karaoke. His breath catches at the possibility of reconciliation and slowly mending fences, his brain tapping _what if_ , _what if_ , _what if_ in a rapid sequence of Luke Danes Morse Code. Because maybe—just maybe—her heartfelt ballad was the bridge intended to lead to their second chance? Perhaps it was the green light that signaled to put the car in drive and begin again? Maybe this was the basket-bidding opportunity the universe concocted for him to barter back the Gilmore heart he never meant to lose?

 _I want you to know I'm in_ , Luke had admitted on their first date, _I am all in_.

After all this time, after all that had brought them together and had torn them apart, those words still resonated in the flanneled depths of his soul. Somehow truer now in the quiet thrumming of his heart than in the declarative syllables he once spoke out loud to her. There was no OUT of love with Lorelai, there was only IN.

"It was just karaoke. You know, I got swept up in the lyrics and the moment," Lorelai explains with a laugh and a flippant hand gesture at Babette and Miss Patty. "It didn't _mean_ anything!"

A baseball bat whacks, then cracks against the side of his head at her words, his eardrums suddenly roaring with the deafening _pain pain pain_ of her last sentence. His teeth clenc, turning his hopeful smile into nothing more than a forlorn frown. His hands tremble, becoming slick and slippery with sweat, as he slides a pile of dishes onto the counter before they crash against the floor to coat his feet in shards of sorrow.

The shock, the shock, the shock.…

The pain, the pain, the pain…

He rubs his hands across shirt. Then his jeans. And steadies his surprise into complacency.

He plasters that gruff, taciturn mask on his face so it's more difficult for his customers (and for her) to perceive the passionate misery gurgling within him. It lingers behind his stern eyes…beneath his tight, unsmiling lips. It buries itself deep within the sharp and monosyllabic tone of his voice when he next decides to speak.

 _It meant nothing? It truly meant nothing?_

Luke sighs to himself, disappointed and hurt. But it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because he'd already unconsciously knotted himself onto the end of her tether the day they first met, sinking himself like an anchor into her sandy-and-simpering-sarcastic world. He's the goddamn Titanic!

Stranded.

Shipwrecked.

He strolled across the ocean floor and stared at the rippling horizon looking for any hint of her mermaid fins splashing and veering his way. Luke's nothing but a sunken ship offering harbor to a mystical creature in search of "the whole package."

Safety, steadiness, shelter. These are the only things he can offer her on his Island of Support. He's there—however, or if ever, or whenever she comes. He's there in whatever capacity she needs him.

The truth is that Luke is and will continue to be _all in love_ with Lorelai Gilmore—in friendship or in romance, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse—all the days of his life. Because his love for Lorelai spells out in absolute letters:

 _I will always be around._

 _Until death do us part,_

 _I am all in._

* * *

 **Reviews are lovely. xx**


	3. When All Sense Breaks Loose

**AUTHOR'S NOTE** : **This is my contribution to A Gilmore Christmas over on Tumblr and it's my first attempt at Literati fic, so I'm more than a little nervous about it. But I hope you like it regardless. :)**

 **SUMMARY : It's late, close to the holidays, and Rory and Jess find themselves alone strolling through a snowy and decor-decked Stars Hollow to share a moment where past and present feelings collide.**

* * *

This one will wreck him. O _h, yeah._ This one promises calamity.

 _xx_

Jess hears it in the cracking first. He feels it in the thawing of his bones the moment he reaches out to catch the edge of a snowflake with his thumb and swipes it off her cheek, his thoughts splitting into chaos because ' _over…long over_ ' is what they're supposed to be. And they were. They _are._

But then she steps close enough to shoulder-bump him, her head tilted, her eyes shining up at him with a mixture of alcohol, gaiety, and anticipation as they head back to the house so they can drink coffee and gorge on some of Sookie's gourmet sugar cookies; and soon, all of those unspoken words he swore he'd deleted years ago when they were still a couple of twenty-something kids up to their waists in missed chances, spill out into the margins of his mind in ink too permanent to miss. The words fall out all tangled together like carefully embedded prose to expose dusty questions that had apparently never settled like he'd intended.

(Or more like he'd damn-well hoped.)

 _xx_

He smells it in the crispness of the air second.

Clumsy as ever, Rory folds her fingers into the crook of his elbow in a clinging effort to keep herself steady after her foot slides backward on a slippery patch of sidewalk near Miss Patty's dance studio. Her hands curl into the lapels of his jacket. They fly around his neck within seconds next, desperate for somewhere soft and sturdy to land, and his lungs betray him with one measly hitch of breath. Backstabbing bastard lungs, they are, too. Freezing at her touch like it's the first time. Sending fresh trembles along his shoulders, then down the columns of his spine.

"This feels like a scene straight out of _While You Were Sleeping_ ," she laughs.

Her tone's full of self-mockery and ridicule, but she doesn't seem bothered by her impromptu ice skating or her near-toppling into his arms at all, which Jess finds curious.

"But as long as you don't rip your pants up the ass," she continues, "we should be okay the rest of the way. At least—well, would you say you're more _Blades of Glory_ or Wayne Gretzky?"

"Charlie Conway, probably." When she stares at him blankly, he flicks her side with his index finger and says _,_ "From _the Mighty Ducks_?"

"Oooh, lucky me! I mean, had you said Gordon Bombay, I'm afraid I'd have to contend with your weak and wobbling hockey knees," Rory says in a way that denotes both her relief and her amusement.

"In that case, we'd both be screwed."

"Right, so no ripped jeans or ice-kissed butts for you. Got it, mister." Just to be safe, however, she links her arm through his anyway. She leans against him for warmth or for support (or for who the hell knows what else), as they recommence their stroll through Stars Hollow.

They somehow manage to take the long and slow route home. She doesn't seem to mind, though, so why should he? And even though Jess knows he shouldn't, he breathes in the lavender soap of her skin and allows himself to remember how well she's always fit against his side. How right she's always felt. Like the home he'd never had with Liz…or with any other woman he's dated since Rory.

He thinks of sleigh rides, of a stolen teenage kiss or two behind _Gypsy's Auto Repair_ ; he thinks of quiet nights in, of cuddling and movie bingeing, of Indian chicken curry which stunk up the whole of his uncle's apartment, of talking Faulkner, Hemingway, and Bukowski with little to no regard for time. He remembers how certain of her, and of _them_ , he'd once been.

 _I know you. I know you better than anyone._

The reflection hurts. It chafes him worse than frostbite to know he'll probably always be the one who understands her best.

But what does it matter? What good does it do to reflect on those chapped patches of his past? How does it help to contemplate his screwed-up life? Why wonder and wish? Why—why in _hell_ should he waste any more time on unfulfilling idioms like ' _if_?'

(Except he does.)

 _xx_

Jess sees it in the pine trees third, their boughs bent and threatening to break because they carry too much weight. They hold too many frozen dreams that'll hit the ground soon but won't melt. They'll try, sure, but they'll never seem to fade away despite the passing of countless springs. They can't—it'd be too dry without their existence afterwards, too unburdening.

 _Because you didn't say goodbye._

 _I deserve better than this._

 _You, me…you know we're supposed to be together._

 _I knew, I knew it the first time I saw you._

How many years has it been, huh? Ten? Fifteen? Fifteen _years_ he's spent trying to thaw these thoughts inside of him, acting like she hasn't creeped through his mind when his world grew too hollow or too full; and that's either too many to count on fingers, or too much time for him to try and pretend otherwise. It's asinine to deceive himself. A waste of good lies.

 _I knew, I knew, I knew…_

The ringing in his mind won't stop.

It plays in the background like static because he still discerns that dangerous load of thoughts in his periphery—all of those old moments of theirs which promised continuity and evolution and ' _I love you_ 's' which didn't need saying; that hand of hers which never felt too heavy in his and would never be anything but a pleasure to hold—to thread his fingers through for no reason—to raise to his mouth so he could learn the paths of her palms, her wrists, her knuckles, all of her sweet, soft skin, with his lips over and over again—and he doesn't want to let the perilousness of hope to overwhelm him. He doesn't want to blink. He doesn't want to close his eyes. _Don't think, don't think_! He doesn't want to find himself blinded or paralyzed by dreams he's no longer supposed to be dreaming.

But they can't be stopped. They unravel and unwind. They… _they keep on coming_ regardless of the iron walls he raises and reinforces inside his own head to ward against the intrusion.

It's draining, this looped thinking.

He can't win. He can't break free. So _why_ , he wonders, _why the hell does he try_? It's exhausting and pointless and awful and unbearable. His head is the cruelest place to be.

 _Yeah_ , it's crueler than anything.

 _xx_

It's a few hours past midnight now, and despite having closed out the only bar in town with scotch, candlelight, and conversation a good half hour ago, they still loiter beneath the snowcapped Christmas lights in front of _Luke's_ with nothing but snow and old memories for company. Rory's resplendent in her double-breasted peacoat, her mouth clicking off new words and subjects as fast as fingers on a keyboard. There's a bounce in her knees at the moment which he swears she reserves only for donut sightings, new book releases, Lorelai and coffee, so he's at a loss when she drags him under the awning below where it says _Williams Hardware_ and presses her face into the window like she's investigating something. Or like she's looking for someone's dropped holiday crumbs.

The diner's black inside, however; the sign flipped to show it's closed. And it probably has been for some hours now. Undeterred, however, she turns around to flash him a knowing grin—a hint of intrigue dimpling the edges around her cracked lips, "Of all the java joints, in all the towns, it hangs from mine! Can you believe it _?_ " she says with an exhilarated ' _eeee_.'

"Believe what?"

"Look up."

Jess inclines his head. He feasts his eyes on the object of interest which dangles above him like the universe's next big test. (Or trick, depending on how this conversation ends.)

"Huh. That's new _,_ " he muses.

"It's not only new, my friend, but _legendary_ ," Rory says as her tongue slides cheekily across her lower teeth. "And I mean that in the sense that this so unbelievable, I'm convinced the Doctor plopped down in his T.A.R.D.I.S. and threw us into some kind of warped alternative reality where Luke spends his free holiday hours stringing popcorn and disappearing down chimneys _._ "

He acts like he's not hanging on by her scarf strings.

"So, uh…" he clears his throat, gulping down that familiar flutter he's been trying to subdue all night, "what now?"

"I'd say we have a conundrum, Watson."

"We sure do, Sherlock."

The ghost of their past love, which is not dead yet, follows close behind this remark to rustle the nerves of his heart like a skeleton because she's all doe-eyed and lively, flirty without trying, and not to mention _cute as hell_. It makes Jess clench his fists as he struggles to get a fucking grip. Making him feel things he thought he'd taught himself how to forget.

How many times can this happen? How many goddamn ways to Sunday can he be kicked in the gut? It won't do anymore, alright? Not when he's taken the trouble to grow this thick, mature leather skin.

(Except he knows it's too late. He already knows…)

 _He's back where he started again_.

He's back at the threshold of seventeen where he first spotted that ellipsis carved into the corners of her mouth on the night they first met, standing in her bedroom doorway like a thief, coveting her literature because he knew with a glance that this girl was sentences and paragraphs. He knew she was pages and chapters and books which were yet to be understood in some overarching theme he wouldn't be able name. He knew she was a still-developing story he'd need to read through to the conclusion.

 _I knew. I knew the first time I saw you._

That same ellipsis is back in Rory's features tonight, in this moment. Or maybe it's always been there? Maybe it's never disappeared, never gone away?

She wears it like a bookmark: pressed between every curve and contour, written between every beautiful line of her face. It's the same one asking him to turn over to the next page right now…and follow again.

 _xx_

He senses it in the forgotten silence fourth.

 _xx_

"Luke would be furious if he knew," Rory says with a flick of her forefinger.

"Maybe he already does? Lorelai has wife sway these days. I'm sure she works that to her advantage," Jess replies with a snicker.

The December air has reddened her nose and there's snow stuck to her pant leg, but she seems impervious to the cold of her beloved Stars Hollow.

"Mom would revel in how you've bestowed her with all the credit for this, but no," she shakes her head, obviously amused. "No, Luke's compliance with town tradition would make Taylor too gleeful."

Pensive, Jess nods. He rolls up the sleeves of his brown coat.

"Let's take it down then."

"What!?" Her eyes widen, horrified."No! Wait, wait!"

Part diverted, part bemused, he pauses to quirk an eyebrow at her, "What for? Petal will eat it. There's not a garbage dropping in all of Connecticut that pig hasn't devoured like it's _creme brulle_ ," he offers reassuringly.

"Yeah, but…that's not what I—"

"He's become the Tiny _oinking_ Tim of this crazy town, anyway. Except with tender hooves instead of crutched feet."

"And Kirk."

"Yeah, and Kirk," Jess concedes wryly.

"Hold on," Rory interjects in a bolder tone. "Let's stop think about this for a second. If we do this," she exhales, her blue-knit mittens raised in supplication and her bottom lip sucked between her teeth, "if we do it, then we forfeit the chance to witness a ranting, raving Luke throwing candy canes all over the floor of the _Soda Shoppe_ tomorrow."

"Imagine the entertainment potential with me here, Kimmel." She sweeps her arms out for dramatic effect, zooming in at him with her hands like a camera. "It'd be like _Jingle All the Way_ meets _Stars Wars_."

"With Taylor as what? A crowd-flung Booster? Chewbacca?"

Rory nods enthusiastically, "There'd be heavy Wookie wailing and all."

Jess' lips twitch as he considers this. Then he shrugs. "Nothing we haven't seen a million times before."

"No! But…but… _this_ year he's selling candy cane light sabers that glow as red as Kylo's tantrums!" she says in _ta-da;_ as if, somehow, this information will confuse him enough to halt his next maneuver.

"Where's Han Solo when you need him to smuggle you some good marketing?" Jess cringes. "Geez."

"Still stabbed through the chest somewhere, unfortunately. Besides," Rory adds with a wave of her hand, "I doubt the Force is strong enough to fix Taylor's strange slogans."

"You said it, Skywalker, not me."

He reaches up then, still shaking his head, to curl his hand around the decoration's sparkly red bow. Finding the hook, he threatens to yank it to the ground with a good tug or two despite the punches Rory pounds into his arm in playful protest. Smirking, he lifts it further out of her reach. She narrows her eyes in warning.

"Don't even think about it, Mariano!" she exclaims as she lunges over his shoulder amid a peal of laughter. Attempting to grab it from him, she jumps up-and-down like a pogo stick. "Oh my God, don't you dare deprive me of the possibility of Luke going all Vader in the middle of Taylor's SantaLand tomorrow!"

"Cool your over-caffeinated bouncin' there, Easter bunny," Jess laughs. He twines the slack of her scarf around her head to slow her down. "What if I said I plan to leave a festive chalkperson in its stead? Would that be an acceptable substitute, d'you think?"

Lowering his hand, he allows the ball to swing, unencumbered, above them like an ornament. Rory pulls back to unloosen her scarf, her face flushed and her mood jovial. "Only if you draw Santa Claus," she says.

He wrinkles his nose, "Nah, I was thinking more like Dickens' Christmas ghosts. This town needs a good haunting."

"Whatever you say, Scrooge."

"Excuse me, but the name's Dodger to you."

"As if I could forget," she says with a wistful chuckle, averting her gaze.

Moments like these always feel so easy and natural and _inevitable_ between them. Like laughter, or…breathing.

"Putting the whole Dennis the Menace scheme aside for a second," Rory looks down and crunches salt and snow beneath her boots, "I was thinking…"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe we could—oh, I don't know…"

When she stops mid-thought to click the heels of her boots together and shift her body to the side, fumbling with her mittens, he prods. "What?"

"We could…we could, um, let it stay there, couldn't we? It's not bothering anyone up there, and Luke's inflammatory reaction whenever he sees it tomorrow will be nothing short of Oscar-worthy and, well," Rory adds in a languid but rambling tone which is a little reminiscent of her timorous teenage self, "it wouldn't be illegal if two people found themselves under it or anything."

"You mean, like…" Jess swallows. His voice comes out husky, like it's comprised of strangled consonants and vowels, and it makes the words quiver when they breach his lips to meet the air. He hates the sound. "Kind of, uh," he falters a second time; scratches his chin, "kind of like we are now?"

Shrugging ' _yeah_ ' in a nonchalant way, but still fidgeting more than normal by bouncing on her toes, Rory angles toward him with warm but wary eyes that size him up as if they're still trying to decide something, "I mean, don't you think some traditions can be nice?" she asks timidly.

"No."

"No?"

"I don't know." He shoves his hands into his pockets. He rocks side-to-side as if he's trying to circulate warmth to his limbs, but really, he's avoiding her eyes. "Maybe," he amends.

"So, certain ones can be okay then?" Rory asks with a tilt of her head.

"Depends, I guess."

There's a slight edge to her expression when she looks at him here: something that's equal parts adorable, nervous, tenacious, and bashful. It's a look that reaches out with a hand that shivers whenever she scoots forward to huddle between his feet, her fingers trembling against his shirt, above his heart. She shivers hard.

"Would you be scandalized if I told you I liked this tradition?" she asks.

"No," Jess breathes. "Not really."

"After all," Rory whispers, her blue eyes warm and eager as she wraps her arms around his neck and presses her forehead against his, leaning in with calamity curved into her smile, "what's the harm in you and me beneath some mistletoe at least once in our lives?"

"I'll quote the Beach Boys here and say—" Cupping her face in his hand, drawing her against him, he surrenders to that awaiting gift like he would delicious poison, " _God only knows_."

 _xx_

Jess tastes it on her parting and pliant lips last. Her tongue slides in and tells him everything he needs to know because this part—the kissing, that zipping and tingling chemistry which adrenalizes every nerve in his body the moment their mouths collide—is the one thing that's worked flawlessly between them since the start. And it still does.

The connection between them is still there, still flourishing.

It's more alive in this moment than it was fifteen years ago, and it's sharpening into something denser and deeper. It's precarious at best; irrational to the core. It's becoming a fact as inevitable and as irrevocable and as fucking _evident_ as black letters on a pure white page, and Jess knows there's not a single damn thing he can do to prevent his mind from writing it down in literal easy-to-read lines. No margins this time. He knows he can't stop the rush of past, present, and future from merging inside his pounding chest, from rustling those old feelings he's tried (and failed) to claw from his heart like weeds.

This is it. There's no subduing or denying. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, this is ' _the beginning and ending of everything.'_

Calamity hangs above his head with the mistletoe then falls like the December flakes around them as Rory kisses him long and hot and sweet. Wrecking him with the knowledge that he could— _yeah, he could fall in love with her again all too easily_.

* * *

 **Thoughts? Comments are always lovely and thank you so much for reading!**

 **xx Ashlee Bree**


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